


Tar Black Soul

by OnlyTheBeginning



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Minor Character Death, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-14 05:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1254643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyTheBeginning/pseuds/OnlyTheBeginning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.” Neil Gaiman. </p>
<p>In which Emma and Killian know just how love can hurt. [Their past loves and the similarities]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tar Black Soul

**Author's Note:**

> Gaiman's quote just sticks in my head when comparing Emma and Killian's love lives, they've both fallin in love and had it ripped away somehow and changed because of it.

Emma was chasing her next mark, a guy who had skipped his bail after his pregnant girlfriend had posted for him and been waiting at the police office for his release. She had called Emma after waiting for four hours only to find out her boyfriend had cut out about 20 minutes before she got there. Needless to say pissing off his pregnant and emotional girlfriend had been his first mistake. His second was trying to run for the Mexican border ( _Why is it always Mexico_ Emma thought). 

As she chased down her newest lead in her yellow bug she passed a sign. 

20 miles to Marianna. 52 miles to Tallahassee. 120 miles to Mexico City, Mexico.

Tallahassee. Now there was a city she hadn't thought of in months, maybe years.

...

 

After Emma was released and given her car, the first place she moved to was Tallahassee, Florida. She set up with her parole officer, got a job, and began her weekend ritual of walking around the city. She knew that it was a long shot, after all he'd left her to be found by the police and skipped out, but Emma couldn't help it. She wanted to find him.

Whether it was to kiss him or punch him she couldn't tell yet. She'd missed him. She'd hated him. She'd mourned him. She'd lost the only piece of him that was substantial.

Of course, _he_ was never hers. She couldn't be a mother.

But still, she felt the ache of missing Neal like her right arm, like a phantom limb that twinged whenever she thought of his presence.

And for two years she walked every street in the hot, humid city looking for a man she knew wasn't there.

Maybe it was the idea of him waiting that had her searching. But she never found him there, only the death of a dream.

...

Captain Hook stood at the helm of his ship, slowly changing the course as the night went on. Some nights were like this, where he couldn't sleep no matter how much rum he drank or minutes he kept his eyes closed. The nightmares haunted him occasionally still, even after all these years.

Sometimes he catches a flash of raven hair from the corner of his eye, and when he turns its merely a scrap of cloth or the wave the the night ocean.

Other times its a smell, a hint of something exotic that she would have loved. Jasmine, cloves, ginger; anything that she would see at a market and persuade him to buy just to hang in their quarters.

The worst is when his hand hurts. That phantom limb that aches like it had when just cut by that damned crocodile. That pain is the worst, for it brings back the memories of his loss brightly and clearly cutting him deeper. The loss of his hand would always be a reminder of the loss her Milah. 

He finds himself sailing to the spot where they came through the portal that day, past the reefs and waves that had brought him to this hellish isle. He doesn't know if she'd like this place or not, while she loved adventure she hated death. He and his crew have had plenty of that on the island.  

He knew his only hope was to survive, to someday find a way off this cursed land and to kill the Dark One, to end the demon the same way he had ended Killian's dreams. 

With death. 

.... 

They sat outside the palace, neither really wanting to participate in the celebration within. David and Mary Margaret had held a ball welcoming Emma and Henry into the Enchanted Forest in their old castle. Emma had been relieved and overwhelmed at finding her parents, even though she'd had to rescue them from the Witch first. Neal had been wounded in the fight and taken to his rooms to heal, Hook had seen Emma's face when she heard Neal's fevered words as they carried him away. 

_So sorry Emma, August told me to. Had to let you go. So sorry. I didn't know about Henry._

Her face had shut down and she had calmly waited until he was gone and her parents stopped hugging her before she walked out of the room. 

Now they sat, both dressed in ridiculous clothes, staring over the lake as everyone inside danced and laughed. 


End file.
